Americans Struggle To Find Iran On The Map, and Unbelievably, Some Even Chose The U.S

by Damjan

Americans can’t agree if the drone attack ordered by President Trump on Iran’s general is justified or not. The two sides have arguments of their own, and they won’t budge. And although almost 100% of people have opinion on it, just 25% of them can actually show where Iran is on the map.

A recent survey that was taken in between the US attack on Iran’s general and Iranian attacks on the US bases in Iraq showed that only 23% of the people in the US could locate the country on a world map.

The percentage improved when they were shown a zoomed-in plan that eliminated the Americas, Australia, East Asia, and the ability to click in the middle of the ocean. It did not improve dramatically, though. It went from 23% to 28%.

You are starting to wonder how you would do on the quiz, aren’t you?

Data analyst that supervised the survey shared the results.

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morningconsult

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Image credits: jpiacenza

morningconsult Image credits: morningconsultA similar experiment in 2017 had Americans trying to point out North Korea on a map, and in 2014, they were asked to find Ukraine, with similar results. Disturbingly, in both surveys, there was a positive correlation between not knowing where the country in question was, and being in favor of airstrikes or deploying US troops there. That’s right: people are more likely to want to send their country’s beloved troops to places they can’t even envision.The recent survey on Iran didn’t identify any such correlation between geographical knowledge and opinions on the implications of the strike, but it did reveal some other unfortunate truths. If you want to get smug about party lines, we’re going to have to stop you right there, because Democrats and Republicans both scored under 30%, with independents not scraping much higher (a margin of error of 2% makes those few percentage points not worth squabbling over.)What’s more, even college-educated respondents struggled to locate Iran, with well below half responding correctly. Geography is usually lumped into “social studies” in US high schools, with many teachers reporting that they spend little time on it, and realistically, few people are learning geography after they graduate if they’re not majoring in it.

jpiacenza

morningconsult

morningconsult

jpiacenza

jpiacenza

morningconsult

Americans didn’t do so well when they were supposed to point to European countries. It is fair to mention that the Europeans didn’t do so well on tests about the states in the USA. Still, it is not really the same when you don’t know individual states in some large country and not knowing where the whole country is-especially when it comes to countries that are large world players and often mentioned in the news or everyday life.

The results may be a bit funny, but they stop to be when you realize that the total ignorance about a nation that your own country affects so much is insulting.